Looks like FT's memory span is pretty short. Today doesn't even get close to the misery of job-hunting in 2003 or 2008. That's why I stopped taking these news outlets seriously.
For young people, the job search has never been so miserable
51–60 of 74 posts
Re: For young people, the job search has never been so miserable
#52It would be great to see some statistics on this. All I see is anecdata, some people saying it is abysmal, some saying it's fine if you're good. It's hard to compare to eg 2008, when I wasn't even in the market.
Fwiw, I'm not really looking, just the usual back burner. There's lots of HH enquiries, but it all ends with ghosting.
Re: For young people, the job search has never been so miserable
#53Honest story time. I don't even feel like hiding behind a throwaway. In 2020 my boss, and CEO suddenly passed away to cancer. I found myself (CTO) having to run an entire company, while I was already dealing with personal issues. I rose to the occasion, did the best I could while also I explored the possibility of selling the company, which felt the most sensible option given the context (which I am not going to expl…
Your comment struck a chord. Take care and wish you all the best.
Re: For young people, the job search has never been so miserable
#54Meanwhile, the stock market is through the roof, bitcoin rallied spectacularly, the housing market is unreachable to most, and let's just not talk about gold. And AI hasn't kicked in yet. At some point, we'll need to throw all the economists into the sea and start realizing what's going on here...
> At some point, we'll need to throw all the economists into the sea and start realizing what's going on here... I recommend reading Thomas Piketty if you want some of the more modern works on what is going on with our social economics in the west. It's not exactly a new phenomenon though, wealth inequality is part of the cycle of civilization and it always leads to some form of wealth redistribution. How that happen…
> If it were to follow my parents 30 year increase on their house, we should be able to sell it for 26m dkk by 2050... which isn't going to happen.
Why not?
Re: For young people, the job search has never been so miserable
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At some point, we'll need to throw all the economists into the sea and start realizing what's going on here... I recommend reading Thomas Piketty if you want some of the more modern works on what is going on with our social economics in the west. It's not exactly a new phenomenon though, wealth inequality is part of the cycle of civilization and it always leads to some form of wealth redistribution. How that happen…
> If it were to follow my parents 30 year increase on their house, we should be able to sell it for 26m dkk by 2050... which isn't going to happen. Why not?
That would be 3,5 million euros... I don't think inflation will be that substantial... Or market to stay that level weird to that point.
Re: For young people, the job search has never been so miserable
#56‘Never’ is a long time. There were far worse times in (recent) history, but currently I see many companies rather hiring no one than a graduate/junior. At least in my field (which is common here; saas dev, fullstack), I have too pick between paying a graduate a very large amount of $, much to close to a medior or even senior, to skip over them. I would love to hire someone like me when I was a graduate: I didn’t have…
On the other hand, senior pay expectations are wildly out of orbit because of some exuberant behavior from the FAANGs during COVID. It's been extra annoying because they say the compensation range is fine before the interviews and suddenly their pay expectations are 20%-50% higher than the high end of the range after interviews even when they have no other offers and even if they didn't wow us in the interview.
Where are you seeing that? A lot of senior roles I'm seeing lately have a salary range of 150k. That used to be the salary of mid-level in my area (PNW)
Re: For young people, the job search has never been so miserable
#57Honest story time. I don't even feel like hiding behind a throwaway. In 2020 my boss, and CEO suddenly passed away to cancer. I found myself (CTO) having to run an entire company, while I was already dealing with personal issues. I rose to the occasion, did the best I could while also I explored the possibility of selling the company, which felt the most sensible option given the context (which I am not going to expl…
Your comment struck a chord. Take care and wish you all the best.
Thank you. It's not so bad being broke but with a business in hand now.
It's a lot of hard work and effort, but at least I will not depend on a single person I have to beg to please give me a job or please do not fire me.
Maybe this terrible job situation will force many people to try their chances and become their own boss, and I believe that would be the best outcome for society in the long run. Entrepreneurship is the engine of innovation and change.
Re: For young people, the job search has never been so miserable
#58Meanwhile, the stock market is through the roof, bitcoin rallied spectacularly, the housing market is unreachable to most, and let's just not talk about gold. And AI hasn't kicked in yet. At some point, we'll need to throw all the economists into the sea and start realizing what's going on here...
> At some point, we'll need to throw all the economists into the sea and start realizing what's going on here... I recommend reading Thomas Piketty if you want some of the more modern works on what is going on with our social economics in the west. It's not exactly a new phenomenon though, wealth inequality is part of the cycle of civilization and it always leads to some form of wealth redistribution. How that happen…
Piketty, Varoufakis, they had their "occupy" moment... Sadly, nobody gives a shit about these guys anymore. Piketty joined the socialist candidate Benoit Hamon's campaign during France's 2017 presidential election. Hamon scored 6.36%, an extremely low number.
Re: For young people, the job search has never been so miserable
#59Meanwhile, the stock market is through the roof, bitcoin rallied spectacularly, the housing market is unreachable to most, and let's just not talk about gold. And AI hasn't kicked in yet. At some point, we'll need to throw all the economists into the sea and start realizing what's going on here...
If one wishes to keep an open mind and explore non-mainstream views of the modern world economy, I recommend the first chapters of The Bitcoin Standard, by Saifedean Ammous, an actual trained economist. He has been interviewed by Lex Fridman if you prefer to hear him in podcast version.
These chapters are not about bitcoin, but the societal shift that happened at the turn of last century when countries abandoned the gold standard to finance their wars. The Keynesian economic policy. The concept of time preference which shifts when the value of a currency is diluted by inflation. How very rich entities are allowed to grow richer simply because they are able to get large sums of money "at the source" before inflation has had the chance to raise prices for all of us, etc.
Very unpopular in this circles where the mention of bitcoin is cause to raise pitchforks, and everybody loves to quote economists that seemingly have no clue what is going on.
Re: For young people, the job search has never been so miserable
#60Meanwhile, the stock market is through the roof, bitcoin rallied spectacularly, the housing market is unreachable to most, and let's just not talk about gold. And AI hasn't kicked in yet. At some point, we'll need to throw all the economists into the sea and start realizing what's going on here...
> At some point, we'll need to throw all the economists into the sea and start realizing what's going on here... I recommend reading Thomas Piketty if you want some of the more modern works on what is going on with our social economics in the west. It's not exactly a new phenomenon though, wealth inequality is part of the cycle of civilization and it always leads to some form of wealth redistribution. How that happen…
What's so funny about Piketty is that he probably reached the same conclusion as marxist theoricians did; the surplus value that workers have to forfeit to their bosses drives wealth accumulation and that process is simply theft. But he was probably like "No way I can say that, they gonna think im crazy" and reverted back to a boring social-democratic conclusion.